The toll of COVID-19 to our world has been devastating in terms of lives lost and potential long-term health effects that will continue to be discovered as time goes on. COVID is five times deadlier than the seasonal flu. At the time of this writing, there have been 20.5 million confirmed cases and close to 350,000 deaths due to COVID in the United States.
Last summer, a research group from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) quietly published the results of a new approach in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. What they found was striking. Although the size of the study was small, every participant demonstrated such marked improvement that almost all were found to be in the normal range on testing for memory and cognition by the study’s end.
For decades, chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) has been recognized as a condition that is exactly as its name suggests: chronic (long-lasting) problem with fatigue (tiredness, lack of energy). It has been difficult for people with CFS to receive proper diagnosis and treatment, since the cause or causes are unknown, and there have been no lab tests or other objective studies to identify it with certainty. The condition is now known as myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS,
One of the problems with studying natural medicine is that the whole scientific research model is set up to examine single drugs: give half of the test subjects the drug, give half a dummy pill (placebo), and compare the results to see if it’s effective. That’s fine for pharmaceuticals, with their emphasis on reductionism —
If you’re familiar with my articles, you know that I’m not one for conspiracy theories. Just the facts, ma’am — there’s plenty of science behind natural medicine. So when one of the most prestigious US medical journals publishes an article saying that the sugar industry literally paid to shape the way that we’ve thought about cardiovascular disease for the past half-century,
There has been a lot of research about the benefits of consuming omega-3 fats, primarily from fish or fish oil, for brain and heart health. Several studies in recent years have called those benefits into question, with some prominent scientists stating that people should stop taking fish oil supplements. However, two new studies published this year show that omega-3 fats should not be dismissed so lightly.
A couple of years ago, I wrote about a way to make healthy habits more enjoyable: through games. This so-called “gamification” of life phenomenon included a mobile sci-fi game called Ingress, which encouraged me (and thousands of others around the world) to get out and get walking much more. Now,
Ever read that little “Nutrition Facts” panel on the packaged foods you choose? I tend to spend too much time in the grocery store scrutinizing those, to pick out the healthiest choices. Over the years, those labels have changed to reflect our changing understanding of what’s good (and bad) in nutrition: the clarification of serving sizes,
Americans have been told for decades by dermatologists and public health experts to avoid the sun as much as possible, to decrease the risk of melanoma, the deadliest kind of skin cancer. As usual with such “received wisdom,” however, the story may not be so clear-cut. Recent research has questioned the seemingly dogmatic connection between saturated fat intake and cardiovascular disease.
We all feel blue from time to time, but major depressive disorder (MDD) is a condition that lasts for a long period of time. It’s a disease that people can’t just “get over” or “snap out of.” While antidepressant medications have been helpful for many people with MDD, they come with side effects of their own,